width-intensive, rich-data scenar-
ios, such as continuous video or
audio
streaming
from
those
locations.
Successful IoT projects
are increasing
communication ranges
and capabilities,
while simultaneously
decreasing
communication costs.
While the jury is still out as to which
protocol(s) will win the day and
achieve wide adoption, they all have
different advantages/disadvantages,
and they all have their respective
proponents and detractors. If there
is one degree of commonality across
all of them, however, it is the recog-
nition that all these protocols are
embedded hardware solutions that
address connectivity, power management, data storage, security and battery
life.
Enhancing Communication
If there is an area where there is some divergence of opinion, and in fact the
area where real solutions intersect with reality, it is in intelligent edge solu-
tions. This is where the communications travel a relatively short range to a
gateway, rather than directly to the cloud. There are many reasons why this
may prove to be just as common as direct-to-cloud communication.
Why communicate first to a gateway?
• Better battery life
• Reduced communication costs
• The ability to take local action and run analytics on beefier hardware
Clearly there will be a place for both device-to-gateway and device-direct-to-
cloud solutions. And undoubtedly we will soon see hybrid scenarios as well,
where, for example, most communications flow through a gateway unless
there is some urgent event condition that dictates otherwise. We will have lots
of fun putting these together in the months and years to come.
In conclusion, this is an exciting time for those seeking to build advanced IoT
solutions for the outdoors. We have arrived at the point where edge compute,
communications and battery technologies have finally caught up with the
vision and desire to drive outcomes in the field. Thanks to our extensive group
of partners covering the end-to-end solution — from sensor to gateway to
cloud — and our deep bench of IoT architects, data scientists, AI and Machine
Learning specialists, CTP and HPE are uniquely qualified to assist you in
designing, building and managing your outdoor IoT solutions.
FALL 2018 | THE DOPPLER | 47